Australian Open suffers big blow with United States Tennis Association ‘set to make announcement next week’
The Australian Open and Tennis Australia has apparently lost the battle to keep Craig Tiley with the United States Tennis Association on the verge of confirming he him as their new CEO.
The South African-born Tiley has been the Australian Open tournament director for the past two decades while he has also filled the role of Tennis Australia CEO since 2013.
But his lengthy stint as the chief at the season-opening Grand Slam at Melbourne Park has reportedly come to an end with his next move all but confirmed as he will take up a role at the United States Tennis Association (USTA).
Rumours that Tiley is set to leave Tennis Australia first emerged during this year’s Australian Open with Sportico breaking the news, although the speculation was quickly dismissed by top officials.
During a recent interview with We Are Tennis, Tiley was asked about the reports and stated: “I will say it’s not new, this conversation. It’s happened before. It happened in the previous role. There has been a lot of speculation about it, and I just made a conscious decision to not fuel it, not make comment on it or fuel it.
“We have just finished, as you mentioned at the beginning, arguably the most successful lead-in to the event. I still look at that as just touching the surface, and the two weeks of the AO was driven by the performance of the players and the fun of the fans, and I want to completely focus on that.”
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But according to The First Serve, it is a “done deal” as Brett Phillips revealed on The First Serve Live radio show: “One thing we can tell you tonight is the confirmation of Craig [Tiley’s] announcement as the new CEO of the USTA will take place next week.
“Back in January, we were right in the cut and thrust of the bubble of the Australian Open… there was a lot of speculation. Everyone felt that this was a done deal, but we haven’t yet had official word, but we are going to have official word pretty shortly.”
Tiley has acted as both Australian Open tournament director and Tennis Australia CEO for more than a decade, but both organisations will need to prepare for life without one of their top employees.
Linda Pearce of The First Serve added: “Obviously, Sportico broke the news [in December] that it was going to happen, but no one at the Australian Open seemed to be convinced that it was 100 per cent done. Whereas the people I spoke to were sure it was.
“I think the job will now be split [between the] CEO and Tournament Director instead of one person having both, unless there was a very late, throw the kitchen sink at him move from Tennis Australia.”
